Let's discuss the "trade request" event

Started by twoski, September 06, 2018, 09:10:50 PM

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twoski

Personally, i think this event sucks. Here are some images to help explain.

https://i.imgur.com/DIIZZJM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/5aqpX2c.jpg

First problem: The randomly generated thing that these people request from your settlement is often so ludicrous that it makes the rest of their offer irrelevant. Where am i going to get 340 human leather from?

Second problem: it's also stupid from a storytelling standpoint. You're gonna tell me that this band of colonists will trade me a masterwork LMG, a plasteel dresser and some Luciferium for 23 cowboy hats? What kind of idiotic trade deal is that?

I think this event has a place in the game, but it needs a severe overhaul. Restrict the quantity being asked for based on what the player has. If the player has 100 herbal medicine, then the mission will never ask for more than 100 herbal medicine. This makes the trade deals feasible and worth considering. If your trade deal asks the player for 300 herbal medicine but they only have 100, there's no way they can even partake in the trade deal even if they wanted to.

AileTheAlien

#1
I just thought of an additional way to make these trade deals seem more reasonable; Make them more flexible. For example, instead of some amount of human leather, maybe they ask instead for the same amount of any leather? Another trade could ask for an amount of any textile at all, or an amount of any clothing item.


Ser Kitteh

The trade requests certainly requires some rework but I'd be lying if I don't admit that I find joy from requests akin to "1 vanometric cell for 40 tribalwear".

AcetheSuperVillain

To play devil's advocate, I mostly like the trade events the way they are.  Sure, sometimes I get trades that seem foolish, or aren't worth my time, but that makes the good trades more exciting.  And that's basically the appeal of heavily randomized games like RimWorld in the first place, you put up with a lot of nonsense and unfairness until *ding!* that randomness suddenly gives you something good.  If you're saying that the trade deals should be beneficial every time, well, should they?  Wouldn't making the game easier make it less fun?

The storytelling aspect I can kinda see.  But personally, I can usually make this work in my head.  Maybe they've already got a bunch of plasteel dressers and masterwork machine guns but no tailors or cloth? 

twoski

I'm not saying the deals have to be fair, they could be asking for 100% of the player's herbal medicine and in return offering a weapon or something - a very risky trade involving the player losing all their healing supplies.

However, the deals should be semi-realistic and based on what the player has in stock. Don't waste the player's time with outlandish requests of 300x human leather or some other nonsense like that. Even if you slaughter every human being in your colony and have only one guy left with a million mood debuffs to carry all the leather, i doubt you'd even have 300 total.

AileTheAlien

Human leather is actually pretty easy to get, if you butcher all the raider corpses.

twoski

well the thing is, at the time of receiving that message, there wasn't a single raider corpse on the map. the last raid i had was almost a month ago. so that option wasn't even on the table.

AileTheAlien

I think the trade events only make requests based on what you've already got in stock, for raw resources. So, if you've got 1 human leather, you'll get a request for some larger amount. It's not great, but I think the assumption is that you'll either have spare resources for trade requests. Alternately, do what I do, and use the failed request as an incentive to start stockpiling more resources for the future! :)

Limdood

I've played 6 games so far in B19.  I haven't yet had a request i COULDN'T fulfill....though i've had several i WOULDN'T.

I even had one ask me for 1020 plainleather...I was shocked and annoyed...until i noticed i had over 3000

It currently feels like (though I'll admit, just because i haven't HAD a request i could not fulfill, doesn't mean they can't happen) requests for materials are requests for things you have on hand....leather, wood, steel, etc. while requests for manufactured items are drawn from things your current technology allows you to make.  I was asked once for 13 gladius swords.  I did that one.  A different time i was asked for 7 incendiary launchers, but i was low on components and declined.  Another time i was asked for 11 simple helmets, but i hadn't even scraped enough resources up to make a machining bench, despite having finished the research. 

The game still seems to consider both current colony items and current colony tech level when generating the requests, though I will admit to being mystified why they need 48 bowler hats or why they think I'd need 11 prosthetic arms